2007-03-21 | SCIENCE
Mitchell L. Sogin is receiving ASMs USFCC/J. Roger Porter Award

Mitchell L. Sogin, director of the Josephine Bay Paul Center in Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is receiving ASM's USFCC/J. Roger Porter Award, granted for outstanding efforts by a scientist who has demonstrated the importance of microbial diversity through sustained curatorial or stewardship activities. (USFCC is the United States Federation for Culture Collections.) Dr. Sogin's research has expanded understanding of environmental microbiology diversity, according to ASM. Also worthy of note, according to ASM, is that Dr. Sogin has brought the microbial world to the public through development of the Micro*Scope website, a teaching resource for information and educational activities.

Dr. Sogin is Principal Investigator for an NAI research team headed by MBL that is dedicated to the study of environmental genomes and the evolution of complex systems in simple organisms. The MBL team's astrobiology goal is to search for microbial diversity in rarely studied environments, some featuring conditions resembling those that may have existed millions to billions of years ago on other solar system bodies. The NAI has been funding the MBL team for the past eight years; Sogin has played a role in NASA's Astrobiology Program and its predecessor, Exobiology, for decades.

The ASM awards will be presented at the Society's annual meeting in May.

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